Pencil-sharpener



(Mode1.) 2 Sheets-Sheet '1. W. K. POSTER.

. PENCIL SHARPENER.

No. 290,564.. PatQntedDemlB, 1888;

HZimmem Inventor WEI/lie rlfiir'eclqe Fodter. V

was. mmmmwen Washin ton. 0 c

(ModeL) 2 Sheets-Sheet 2.

4 W. K. FOSTER.

PENCIL SHARPEN'ER, No. 290,564 Patented Dec. 18,- 1883.

Inventor.

Nrrnn STATES W'ALTER KITTREDGEFOSTER', OF STONEHAM, MASSACHUSETTS. c

PENCiL-SHARPENER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 290,564, dated December 18, 188.".

Application filed May 29,1883. (ModeL) T 0 all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, WALTER Krrrunnen FOSTER, of Stoneham, in the county of Middlesex, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Im-v provement in Pencil-Sharpeners; and I do hereby declare the same to be described in the following specification and represented in the accompanying drawings, of which- Figure 1 is a front elevation, Fig. 2 a vertical and longitudinal section, Fig. 3 a transverse section, and Fig. 4 a lower end View, of a pencil-sharpener provided with my invention, the nature of which is defined in the claim hereinafter presented. Fig 5 is hereinafter explained.

My said invention relates to 'the class or kind of pencil-sharpeners for which Letters Patent No. 20,056 were granted to me on April 27, 1858, and subsequently extended. In such kind of pencil-sharpener the mouth for reception of the pencil is conical, provided with a chip-discharging throat leading laterally out of it and aside of a blade or knife fixed in the body and reaching to the apex of the conical mouth thereof, which there is closed.

In my present sharpener, the mouth is not closed at its upper end, but is there open and the blade projects upward beyond the opening, and there is at the upper end of the blade, and extending across and above that of the mouth, a stop or abutment for the point of the pencil to bring up against. There is a passage through the sharpener, between such abutment and the upper end of the mouth, such being to allow of discharge of shavings from the lead and a person to see the knife and pencil-point when the latter may project above the upper or lesser end of the mouth. Furthermore, this sharpener forms on the pencil, or its lead, a truncated conical point, or, in other words, a point that is the frustum of a cone, and not a cone terminating at its apex in a short cylinder or a geometrical point, as represented in the United States Patents Nos. 18,265 and 20,263.

In my improvement the knife at its junction with the lower edge of the abutment is not in the axis of the conical mouth of the sharpener, but is at a short distance therefrom laterally, the vertex of the cone of the mouth being above the said bottom of the sharpener. Were the said vertex in the said bottom, the pencil would be cut to so fine a point that it would crumble away and the cutting would progress, so as to waste the body and lead of the pencil.

It is not desirable to have the pencil terminate in a cylindrical point, or in a cylindrical and conical point, as shown in the aforesaid Patent No. 18,265. By having the point formed as a truncated cone of small diametcr at its terminus, the point when it may reach the abutment will be strong enough to resist the further advance and cutting of the pencil, and therefore all unnecessary waste of the pencil in sharpening it is avoided, and the lead, generally speaking, will be suffi ci ently pointed for all practical purposes.

In the drawings, A denotes the conical body, and B the handle, of the sharpener. O is the mouth, D the knife, and a the chip-discharging throat thereof, all being arranged as shown. The mouth is open at its upper end, and thence opens into the passage 1), going transversely through the handle and against the part of the knife that extends above the said mouth. The

point stop or abutment projects directly over the upper opening of the mouth, and from the upper part of the knife, as shown at 0. Against this abutment the point of the pencil is borne when the sharpening of the pencil may have been completed, or about so, the abutment operating not only to prevent the further reduction of the pencil by the knife, but to finish or smooth the point, and prevent the formation there of a burr, as frequently is pro duced when the sharpener is without the abutment. Fig. 5 represents on an enlarged scale this arrangement of the abutment and the cutting-edge of the knife with reference to the axis and vertex of the cone of the mouth. The mouth is in form the frustum of a cone, whose apex or vertex (shown at f) is within the abutment c and above its lower edge. At its junction with the said lower edge, or at the vertex of the angle which the said edge makes with the cutting-edge of the knife, such edge of the knife is situated at a distance from the axis g of the mouth equal to half the diameter of the circular apex of the truncated conical point to be produced.

I herein do not claim a pencil-sharpener made as shown in either of the aforesaid United arranged at a distance aside of the axis of the States patents; but said month, all being substantially and for the IO I-c1aimpurpose as set forth.

, In the described improved pencilsharpener 5 the abutment having its bearing-face between WVALTER KITTREDGE FOSTER the apex and base of the conical mouth, in \Vitnesses: combination with the knife or cutter having R. H. EDDY, its cutting-edge at its junction with said face, E. B. PRATT. 

